Rochester's coldest month. Ever.

Years from now when you think back on this month of February 2015, try to forget about the frozen pipes, dry skin, deadened fingertips and the click-click-click of an ignition switch trying to coax a spark from a lifeless car battery.

You'd be better off remembering this: The gigantic frozen fountain at Letchworth State Park with tourists swaddled in puffy coats gazing at the icy spectacle made viral in endless social-media photos and national-news feature stories.

That may be the most pleasant meme available for this February, which will need one: It's about to be etched in Rochester's historical record as the coldest month we've had.

Ever.

Rochester ended February with an average temperature about 3 percent lower than the previous coldest month recorded here. Along with that come so many daily records and other statistical aberrations as to be nearly impossible to track.

We're not alone. "I think all of New York is going to be pretty similar. I think they're all going to be flirting with coldest month ever," said Jessica Spaccio, a climatologist at the Northeast Regional Climate Center in Ithaca.

Forecasters, besieged by demands that they predict an end to the cold, numbly say they can't. March will roar in like a lion wearing a quilted jacket and balaclava.

"Man, there's nothing. It's not looking very warm. I think we're going to be below-normal in the next couple of weeks at least," moaned Steve Welch, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Buffalo.

The boa-like bend in the jet stream that has ushered arctic air into the Great Lakes region and the Northeast while allowing unusual winter warmth to filter into the western part of country is expected to remain in place for the foreseeable future.

There is a school of thought given voice this winter that warming in the Arctic caused by the buildup of greenhouse gases has slowed the jet stream and thus given it the freedom to wander. This suggests, gloomily, that polar invasions of the ilk we've endured this month could become more common.

The coldest month on record for the Flower City is February 1934, which has been legendary for being the year — possibly the only year in recent times — that Lake Ontario froze over.

The average temperature recorded here that month was 12.6 degrees. No other month has come close to being that persistently cold — until now.

The official average temperature in Rochester this February was 12.2 degrees.

That makes it the coldest month in the official National Weather Service record book, which extends back to 1884-85.

The Democrat and Chronicle also has data provided years ago by a meteorology professor at The College at Brockport that go back to 1830, when local academics began recording basic weather values.

There's no colder month in that data either.

Rochester also has broken or tied five records for daily low temperature so far this February, and is on the verge of tying the record for most days in a single month with temperatures of zero or lower. (The record, 11, was set in February 1934. Through Wednesday, we'd experienced 10.)

The mercury has been above freezing for a grand total of just six hours in February, and there has not been one day with enough sunshine to be classified as "clear."

Adding to the misery — remember the misery index that we so obligingly highlighted this February? — has been copious amounts of snow. By month's end, 45.2 inches was recorded by official monitors at Greater Rochester International Airport.

That makes it the fourth-snowiest February on record, and perhaps the 15th snowiest month we've ever had.

As bad luck would have it, most of the snow fell in the early part of the month. Shortly thereafter, temperatures turned jaw-dropping cold. Nearly all of that snow remains in place, in frozen drifts and huge mounds.

Time and again this month, the severity of the cold was driven home. Countless water mains burst. Frost extended so deep into the ground that pipes carrying drinking water into homes froze solid. Furnace exhaust pipes clogged and electric meters became shrouded in ice.

Potholes appeared as if by magic.

Firefighters struggled to extinguish blazes, providers struggled to get food to pantries and shut-ins, and school crossing guards wrapped themselves in so many layers of clothing they struggled to walk.

Grape growers fretted that buds on their precious vines could be damaged by the cold.

So many cars and trucks were hobbled by the cold that the AAA Western and Central New York issued a public explanation Wednesday for the long waits that many members experienced. They said they'd brought on extra help but still had to triage calls like MASH nurses triage incoming patients after a firefight.

The agency, which has offices in Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Watertown and Ithaca, had received 140,150 calls as of Wednesday. That was a 60 percent increase over the same period in February 2014 — which, it should be said, was itself very cold and snowy.

In the Rochester area, AAA has been averaging 665 calls a day for roadside assistance.

Meanwhile, Lake Ontario, the most resistant of the five Great Lakes to ice formation, is more than half covered with ice. Maps drawing on satellite data and produced by agencies in the United States and Canada show open water with scattered floating ice in a sizable portion of the lake on the Canadian side.

This side of the lake is pretty much frozen over.

In early February 1934, when there were no satellites to scan the lake, the captain of the ferry that then steamed daily between Rochester and Cobourg, Ontario, straight north of here, reported that his vessel had to break ice the whole way across.

One ice forecast model operated by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration actually predicts that Lake Ontario will become completely iced over in early March.

That is in keeping with the dismal weather forecast, which suggests we'll shake off the sub-zero temperatures in March but still be shivering.

"It looks like this pattern will be persisting. The only good thing is the sun is getting higher in the sky," said Dave Thomas, a weather service meteorologist in Buffalo, referring to the fact that the days are getting longer.

"I'm trying to find bits of good news. Most everyone is getting tired of this cold here," Thomas said. "Eventually the sunshine will win out and temperatures will be warming."

Editor's Note: Below are a few of our cold-weather related stories -- and links to many others -- that ran throughout the month of February.

We have been making history this month, Rochester winter history.

It's one of the coldest Februarys here, if not the coldest, since people foolishly started keeping track of weather stats. (Really, wouldn't we be better off not knowing?)

Going out in the cold, I shake my head and whine, wondering why, oh why, I'm not in Florida or Arizona or California.

Then I remember a letter to the editor in the Democrat and Chronicle that scolded all of us for grousing about this weather. It's winter in Rochester; get over it, the writer advised.

No way. Whining about the weather comes with the territory. At the post office, at the coffee shop, at school, everywhere, we whine. And always, as we unwind our scarves, take off our gloves, we say this must be the worst winter this area has ever known.

I think I was saying that last year, the worst winter I have ever known, the year the season went on and on, or so I recall.

And I must have been whining during the winter of 1959 and 1960, when Rochester got a record 161.7 inches of snow. Though, come to think of it, I didn't live here then.

Of course, all they did in 1960 was measure snowfall and temperature. I don't think wind chill had been invented, and lake effect north of the Thruway was in its infant stage.

Things are different now. As Sean Lahman wrote in the Democrat and Chronicle earlier this month, some weather experts have come up with the Accumulated Winter Season Severity Index, also known as the "misery index."

The misery index factors in persistent cold temperatures and the amount of snow that has fallen and the amount of snow that won't go away. All the sub-zero days, all the snow that has piled up here, all of that computes as miserable.

I'd also expand the misery algorithms to include layers of clothing. Monday, for example was a five-layer morning for me. T-shirt, long-sleeved shirt, sweatshirt with hood, light jacket, winter jacket with hood. I felt as if I were off to a Bills game.

One of the creators of the index told Lahman that given the way Rochester's numbers were trending, the winter of 2014-15 could end up in the "severe" category on the misery index. Way to go Rochester.

Severe or not, our winter was upstaged early by the wall of snow that hit Buffalo in November and late by the multiple snowstorms that have buried New England.

On the plus side, some attention was paid to the tall and rising frozen fountain at Letchworth State Park, as documented in a wonderful video by the Democrat and Chronicle's Annette Lein. At least that let friends and family in Florida know that it has been cold here.

Cold enough, I should add, to layer up and whine and whine and whine even though we are making history, miserable though it is.

If he worked in the elements, David Wright might not be so enthusiastic about snowshoeing in temperatures barely above zero.

"Because I have an indoor job, I look forward to getting outside," said the 68-year-old mechanical engineer. "I think it gives me a positive attitude. It reduces some stress. There's a certain beauty, going out after the snow falls. The sky is blue. The sun is out. The snow on the trees, you can't beat it."

While many people do embrace the season, others retreat deeper into a burrow than Punxsutawney Phil. With measurable snow on 15 of the first 16 days of February and the high temperature below freezing for 15 of them (zero or below on four days, according to the National Weather Service), many psyches feel as frozen as the landscape.

Photos: Frigid temps hit Rochester

Last February, the area had about 2 feet of snow and three days with temperatures at or below zero.

"There are people who tend to be more vulnerable," said Patricia Woods, president and chief executive officer of the Mental Health Association.

Those who feel alone and isolated or who are recovering from mental illness issues may be more prone to distress during winter, said several people who work in the mental health field. Anything that adds stress creates more of a burden when looking out a frosty window at another layer of snow.

"It makes it more difficult to cope and do the positive things in their life to help them recover," said John Cook, a licensed mental health counselor at the Spiritus Christi Mental Health Center. "There's a narrow margin of resilience. The more you have to cope with and the less reserves you have, it's going to be hard."

Cook said some issues could be timing-related, with harsh weather coming as they readjust to a post-holiday routine. "People put on a big sprint and sometimes after the holidays, there is a bit of a letdown."

Seasonal affective disorder, which is related to lack of sunlight, gets much of the blame for winter mood disorders. Other research on weather and mood isn't as clear. A study several years ago in the journal Emotion reported the average effect of temperature, air pressure, precipitation, sunlight and exposure to light was small but found significant variations among individuals.

"If you are in a good mood, bad weather wouldn't alter it much," Woods said.

Many studies looking at the role of vitamin D in mood disorders have been observational rather than randomly controlled clinical trials, said Dr. Kevin Fiscella, a professor of family medicine and public health science at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry.

He said there was no high-quality evidence that vitamin D supplements improved mood, and any benefit would probably come from the exposure to the sun.

"There are probably other factors than vitamin D that improve the gloomy mood," he said. "Many people do experience, when they go outside, they feel better. We've all had that feeling. It improves well-being."

Numerous studies over the past several years have shown physical activity benefits mood.

Cook, who plays pickleball three times a week and goes cross-country skiing, said that people who are able to stay active adapt better than people who surrender to the weather.

He remembered an elderly woman who lived in the Park Avenue area who every day would walk to one of the nearby restaurants. In winter, he said she used a cane with a spike that she stabbed into the ice.

"I admired her gumption to get out there and face the icy sidewalks and not let the weather stop her life."

But he acknowledged that not everyone has such pluck.

"It's harder to be physically active," he said. "You have to find places. One friend goes to church and walks around the sanctuary to give himself some exercise when it's not safe to walk outside."

Maxine Carey, 65, said she loved the snow and didn't use to give winter much thought.

"When I was young, I was able to get around," said Carey, a volunteer with the Mental Health Association's Life Skills service. "I did for other people. Now this is scary to me."

She said some older people, whether or not they have mental health issues, doubt their ability to get safely to a destination. They worry about their car, or if they need to take the bus, they feel at the mercy of the schedule.

"They don't feel secure in coming out," she said.

To underscore the point, some mental health providers report more cancellations this time of year, and Woods said a program last winter to provide coping tips drew sparse attendance.

At the other end of the spectrum are people like Wright, who can't see themselves spending winter indoors.

"I like the four seasons," he said. "You can live down South where there's spring, summer and fall, but they don't have winter. I'd miss that. There's a certain beauty."

Some days it seems that winter will never end. You reach a point where the never-ending cold and snow make your soul weary, and you wonder if this might be the worst winter you've ever experienced.

There are plenty of data points that could help validate that feeling. There was the recent morning where we woke up to atemperature of 1 degree Fahrenheit, or the foot of snow many of us had to shovel from our driveways just to get out and drive to work last week.

Or this: The National Weather Service reported there were 20 inches of snow on the ground on Monday. It's the first time we've reached that mark since March 1999.

These extreme low temperatures or big snowstorms can make for a miserable day. But the true measure of misery isn't those singular low points, it's the number of those miserable days strung together.

Here's some more data: We've had at least a trace of snowfall on 15 out of the last 17 days.

As of Thursday, temperatures have dipped below freezing for 24 days in a row, and there has been at least an inch of snow on the ground for 15 straight days. None of those are all-time records, but they certainly contribute to a feeling of a long winter.

But what about the big picture? Every winter can't be the worst winter of all time. How can we objectively measure how bad each one has been?

To answer that question, I turned to a pair of weather researchers, Steven Hilberg and Barbara Mayes Boustead. They have spent the last few years developing a system that attempts to boil all of the winter weather factors down to a single number.

But Hilberg, a senior climatologist at the Midwest Regional Climate Center in Champaign, Illinois, bristles at the idea of calling it a "misery index."

"It's a winter severity index," Hilberg said. "Just because it's cold and snowy doesn't mean people are miserable. I personally enjoy winter."

Some of us will have to agree to disagree on that point.

The system, officially dubbed the Accumulated Winter Season Severity Index (AWSSI) looks at the intensity and persistence of cold weather, the frequency and amount of snowfall, and the amount and persistence of snow on the ground.

A score is tabulated based on each day's weather observations for individual cities, and it accumulates throughout the winter season. Those raw scores then determine where each winter ranks on a five-point scale: mild, moderate, average, severe or extreme.

The idea is to put each winter into historical context. This winter may seem unusually harsh in part because recent years have been more mild. In fact, for almost three-quarters of the places studied, the winter of 2011-12 was the mildest on record. That would include Rochester.

How does this year match up? As of Feb. 10, Rochester's AWSSI index was 558. Last year at this time, it was 641.

"Both scores are at the upper end of the average category," Hilberg said. "but last year, Rochester's winter ended up ranking in the top 20 percent, and I expect this season will also drive into that 'severe' category by the time it's over."

Hilberg and Boustead ran the numbers for about 50 locations in the U.S., looking at weather reports for each day from 1950 to 2013, and they're actively monitoring about a dozen cities this winter. It's a complex manual process, and they're working on an interactive online system that would automate the tracking of winter weather in hundreds of cities.

They've published their methodology, so if you're a data cruncher, you can download daily weather totals for Rochester back to the 1950s, fire up your spreadsheet, and run the numbers yourself.

Of course, weather severity is relative to where you live. "A 6-inch snowfall in Atlanta is a major event," Hilberg said. "In Rochester, it's just another day."

And just because we're having a hard winter here doesn't mean the rest of the country is in the same situation.

"This year, Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois are having average winters, but most of the Northeast is pushing into the extreme category," Hilberg said.

In some places, those extremes have been driven by historic snowstorms, like the lake effect snow that buried Buffalo in November, or the trio of storms that have battered Massachusetts.

"In Boston, through about the 24th of January, it was a nothing winter," Hilberg said. "They were in the lowest and most mundane category we have. But then in two weeks, they've shot up to the most severe category we have."

Here in Rochester, we haven't had those types of singularly historic events. What we've had has just been a long steady slog of snow and cold weather.

Misery is largely a matter of personal perception, and the contributing factors are things that meteorologists don't measure: white-knuckled commutes when roads are slick and visibility is low; wet feet that never get dry after trudging through the slush; the back-breaking work of shoveling a driveway, clearing snow from a roof, or scraping ice from your windshield on a bitterly cold morning.

When one massive storm comes, like Buffalo's 2 feet of snow in November, folks hunker down then band together to dig out. The suffering brings a sense of community, and eventually a feeling that you've overcome the worst that winter has to offer.

But when you're instead confronted with day after day of cold and wet, with the cycles of freezing and thawing weeks apart and glimpses of sunlight few and far between ... well, that's a pretty good definition of misery.

Boustead's work on historical weather research was driven in part by her interest in Laura Ingalls Wilder and her Little House on the Prairie book series. In particular, her book The Long Winter, which recounts the 14-year-old girl's experience in South Dakota during the severe winter of 1880-81. Wilder described a terrifying Dakota blizzard that howled and screamed for weeks on end. Short on fuel and food, her father braved the storm to find help and got stranded when the snow became impassable. They were all fortunate to survive.

"One of the big questions about the Long Winter of Laura's experience was to answer this seemingly simple question: How bad was it, and was it the worst winter on record?" Boustead writes at her blog. "To answer that, we have to be able to define 'bad.' "

Boustead, a National Weather Service meteorologist based in Omaha, realized that if she wanted to answer that question, she'd have to create a method that let her answer it.

She found that it ranked as the second-most extreme of all winters where data was recorded. That initial curiosity led to the development of the AWSSI with Hilberg. They spent several years compiling data, performing analyses, and fine-tuning the methodology to provide historical comparisons of each winter season.

Although she differs with her colleague in one regard.

"I personally would call this a misery index," Boustead said.

On that point, I think we can all agree.

Not all of February was doom and gloom.

Here's photographic proof that some people -- and animals -- were able to get outside and have a little fun:

Photos: Polar Plunge draws record crowd

Video: The ice fountain at Letchworth

Photos: Animals brave frigid temps at Seneca Park Zoo

Video: Got icicles? Make art!

Photos: The biggest snowman you'll ever see